


dry grass picnics

by gaytimetraveller



Category: Persona 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 19:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10498320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytimetraveller/pseuds/gaytimetraveller
Summary: Lisa and Jun end up on a picnic on a particularly hot day, Lisa does a lot of thinking, and somehow no one remembered to bring an umbrella.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i am not sure how jumbled this is considering its 1am on a school night and i just crammed half a terms chemistry homework into like 2 hours anyways take this i love my kids obligatory rant about how good persona 2 and these kids and their friendships are

It was hot out, and nearly everyone was busy. Lisa sighed into the oppressive summer air; everything felt like sepia. The grass was drying out, hell, Lisa felt like she was drying out with the amount she was sweating. It was a dry heat, not the heavy damp heat, just the dry heat, the kind that could keep you sweating for hours. Lisa rolled over, staring up at the near cloudless sky, wished there were clouds, or that she’d brought an umbrella. Fields weren’t the best place for shade, even with some of the grass nearly going past her knees standing up, and it went above her head lying down. She thought about the abandoned train tracks a few metres away, and how nice of a sitting spot they’d be if it weren’t so goddamn sunny out. She knew they’d be scorching hot, she wasn’t stupid.

She sat up, one hand over her head, shielding her eyes from the near blinding static sunlight, the other brushing dirt from her tank top. She looked over, at dainty little Jun, over a few feet away, still setting up a picnic blanket. It’d been nearly twenty minutes. What was he doing. He had sunglasses; god, why didn’t she bring sunglasses. Everyone else was busy, so they were having a picnic out in the woods, and Lisa had decided to walk ahead to get to a nice spot first. Now that was mistake number one, considering the place she’d picked was _fucking hot_. The second issue had been Jun almost getting lost but that was another story.

A vague breeze blew through and Lisa thought maybe the field wasn’t so bad. She finally fully stood up, stretching out her legs, lightly swishing one of them through the tall, dried out grass.

She sauntered over to Jun, who was standing above the picnic blanket and the few things laid on it, inspecting for something. God, he was neat, Lisa had never been that neat, that organized, she thought he must be some kind of miracle worker. Lisa resumed swishing one of her legs through the grass, the noise of it, the vague prickle against her legs brought a smile to her face, despite the heat and the discomfort that came with it.

She reminded herself to enjoy it while it lasts, Lisa knew she wouldn’t be able to go on romps out in the woods in only shorts and a fairly thin tank top once fall hit.

“Can we sit yet?” Lisa said. She thought her voice sounded terribly small in this big field, muffled by the heat itself, there was no echo. Jun surveyed the setup of the blanket one last time. Lisa noted he had not brought an umbrella either. Fuck.

“Yes, we’re good,” Jun said, carefully sitting down.

Lisa simply plopped down and began to untie her shoes. She pulled one off, a satisfying feeling, especially with the weather, and motioned to the picnic basket with the sneaker. “So, what’d you bring? I know I threw some stuff in there, but earlier you mentioned leftovers Maya sent your way?”

“Mmhm, Ulala made a macaroni salad last night, and I picked up a fruit salad, and some lemonade.”

“Oh, I threw sandwiches and water in there,”

“Oh that’s good! I was worried about not having water,”

Lisa vaguely smiled as Jun opened up the basket. “Lemonade or water?”

“Lemonade,”

He tossed her a glass bottle of lemonade. She sighed loudly, gladly, when it hit her hands. “It’s cold!” Lisa held the bottle up to her forehead, smiling big. She kicked back, letting herself fall back into laying down. She almost expected to feel a rock or a hard patch digging into her back, but there wasn’t. Well, that made sense as to why Jun spent so long setting up. Jun laughed a little at Lisa kicking her legs through the air, trying to get some kind of breeze going.

It took a while for Lisa to actually sit up and crack the lemonade open, meanwhile Jun was breaking out the macaroni salad. He opted to put it back, and went for the book he’d put out on the blanket. He leaned forward on one elbow, while Lisa spun the top back onto her drink and laid down on her stomach, staring at the tall grass and railroad tracks.

It was quiet, and Jun seemed to be fine with it. Jun had always seemed to revel in quiet. He’d always kind of been in his own world, at least that’s what Lisa figured. On the other hand, the quiet made Lisa’s skin crawl, and for once she choked on the words that she couldn’t bring out to break the silence. She wasn’t sure what to say, Lisa was never exactly the most well worded. Although, unlike some of her friends, she tended to just, constantly talk, whether she knew where she was going or not.

For a moment she thought maybe she was like Tatsuya, but, no, Tatsuya didn’t talk very much at all. Tatsuya kept the words inside, trying to figure it all out she supposed. She just, yelled. She had to get the words out, and it made her ever-so-uncomfortable when she couldn’t.

The sun shined down on Lisa’s back, she could feel herself warming up quite a bit, but on just one side. That was always strange. The ground was probably cool, especially underneath that picnic blanket, and the blanket was an okay temperature, still a little warm. Lisa still couldn’t think of a good conversation to have, one worth breaking the moment. She considered dozing off, but didn’t want to get heatstroke. Maybe she’d ask Jun if he’d brought any sun hats.

Still, the heat somehow felt nice, despite all her complaining about how warm out it was. She thought maybe she was just getting a little too sleepy under the sun, making her judgements just a bit impaired. Somewhere out in the woods birds chirped. Lisa still didn’t like the quiet.

“Do you want to know your weekly horoscope?” Jun said, lightly. Lisa internally thanked him for breaking the silence.

“Nah,” Lisa sighed, staring intently at the train tracks. “I don’t really get astrology, looks cool though,”

Jun laughed a little again and put his face back in his book. Lisa couldn’t imagine another silence. She just didn’t like it, and it felt so damn awkward with her close friends, her friends who had seen the worst of her, who she should be comfortable being quiet around. But she always filled the silence with Tatsuya, and Eikichi filled any kind of auditory/visual/physical/general space quite enthusiastically at any opportunity, many of her school friends were endless chatter, and Maya was good at keeping conversations going, even if they weren’t her own. Jun was a strange case, likely because they were kind of opposites, which Lisa didn’t like to think about. She didn’t like to think about how opposite of her he was, and how in some ways he was everything she would or could never be. Or the jealousy she’d had of him, or that he’d had of her.

She was glad to be his friend but, the silence, it let her thoughts about all this run wild and quick, and they’d already had those conversations about the things like jealousy and competition. She didn’t feel any want or need to revisit it. She just liked to quell those feelings when they came up, she really didn’t need them anymore, or in the first place. He was her _friend_ for fuck’s sake, she shouldn’t be jealous of him over a long given up conquest. Secretly she thinks it’s better that she never won that little challenge, never dated Tatsuya, she knows it wouldn’t have been the best for either side, but her competitive nature never let her admit that. But he’s not hers, it doesn’t matter anymore, it hasn’t mattered for a long time. Sometimes Lisa wished the past was dead (perhaps in that way she was like Jun, but he always seemed to be reflecting on it, it didn’t seem to be very good for him).

On to something else, she thought, she still didn’t like that topic. Wounds still too fresh, she guessed. Or perhaps, it was simply that she didn’t like admitting jealousy was one of her fatal flaws. She didn’t like to acknowledge that, only avoid it, try to keep it from happening in general. She wondered if he was thinking the same, or if he really was absorbed in that book of his.

“Hey, Jun, do you think there’ll be many more days this hot?”

“Probably, why?”

“I wouldn’t mind going to the beach, with everyone,”

Jun nodded, brightening up a bit. “That’d be fun, I’ve never really gone to the beach,”

Lisa rolled over to look right over at him, eyes wide. “Seriously? Really? It’s the best time! We really need to convince everyone to go! It’ll be so fun, not to mention it’s like the best way to not get overheated too,”

“That sounds fun…but do we have to go swimming?”

“I guess not, if you don’t want to? Why?”

“Oh, um…well, I never really learned how…”

Lisa looked up, and Jun was gazing off into the distance. She sat up on her elbows, tilting her head to one side, a slight frown on her face, feet idly kicking behind her. “That’s no problem, we can get you a floaty, I bet Maya’ll use one too, she loves that kinda stuff,” Lisa thought for a moment, “Tatsuya could teach you? I could? Maya could? Hell maybe Eikichi could? If waterproof makeup exists in extreme colours, Eikichi could. Oh! I bet Yukino could, I bet she’s really good,”

Jun nodded, thoughtful. “That sounds like it could be fun,”

“It is! We should all go!”

Jun smiled, and Lisa let herself slip off of her elbows and back into laying down all the way again.

The warmth crept in further, and Lisa struggled to keep her eyes open and on the grass, especially as Jun started humming something or other. She wasn’t the kind of person to nap, but the heat really put her right to sleep. Maybe that’s why she didn’t like heat much at all. She wasn’t the biggest fan of sleep as a concept, especially in the day. Another thing came to mind, and she frowned a little.

“Hey, Jun?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we did good?”

“Hm?”

“For everyone? For ourselves? For the future, and more days like this?”

“Mm…yeah, I think,”

“Me too,” Lisa sighed, rolling over and sitting up, resisting the thrall of warmth and sleep and likely sunstroke/burns. “I’m happy we’re all still here, for more days like this,”

“Me too…” Jun said quietly. He stretched an arm and opened up the picnic basket. “Do you want any macaroni salad? Or fruit salad,”

“You know I fucking love fruits, there better be grapes in there,”

They both laughed, and hoped there would be more happy days, more sunny days, with friends and family and those that were both. Lisa hoped for a beach day and a good night’s sleep, and Jun could only hope for more memories with friends, after all, that was all he’d ever wanted for a long time. It wasn’t long before thoughts of the past and conflicts and everything else not very fun were gone, and Lisa was making a game of throwing grapes in the air and trying to catch them in her mouth. They’d both long forgotten that no one had brought an umbrella.

Lisa was happy to be someone who got lost in the moment.


End file.
